The Cat's Pajamas Read Online Free PDF Page A

hadn’t showed him the way.
    â€œMadeline, Robert! Your guns. I’ll count five and we’ll all rush out! One, two, three—”
    Robert groaned.
    â€œRobert!”
    He fell to the floor, the phone in his fist. His door was still locked. His heart stopped. The phone in his fist shouted, “Robert!” He lay still.
    â€œHe’s at my door now!” said Madeline, high in the winter house.
    â€œFire through the door! Shoot!”
    â€œHe won’t get me, he won’t have his way with me !”
    â€œMadeline, listen! Shoot through the door!”
    â€œHe’s fumbling with the lock, he’ll get in!”
    â€œMadeline!”
    One shot.
    One shot and only one.
    Alice stood in the library alone, staring at the cold phone in her hand. It was now completely silent.
    Suddenly she saw that stranger in the dark, upstairs, outside a door, in the hall, scratching softly, smiling at the panel.
    The shot!
    The stranger in the dark peering down. And from under the locked door, slowly, a small stream of blood. Blood flowing quietly, very bright, in a tiny stream. All this, Alice saw. All this she knew, hearing a dark movement in the upstairs hall as someone moved from room to room, trying doors and finding silence.
    â€œMadeline,” she said to the phone, numbly. “Robert!” She called their names, uselessly. “Mother!” She shut her eyes. “Why didn’t you listen ? If we had all of us at the very first —run out—”
    Silence.
    Snow fell in silent whirls and cornucopias, heaped itself in lavish quietness upon the lawn. She was now alone.
    Stumbling to the window, she unlocked it, forced it up, unhooked the storm window beyond, pushed it out. Then she straddled, half in the silent warm world of the house, half out into the snowing night. She sat a long moment, gazing at the locked library door. The brass knob twisted once.
    Fascinated, she watched it turn. Like a bright eye it fixed her.
    She almost wanted to walk over, undo the latch, and with a bow, beckon in the night, the shape of terror, so as to know the face of such a one who, with hardly a knock, had razed an island fort. She found the gun in her hand, raised it, pointed it at the door, shivering.
    The brass knob turned clockwise, counterclockwise. Darkness stood in darkness beyond, blowing. Clockwise, counterclockwise. With an unseen smile above.
    Eyes shut she fired three times!
    When she opened her eyes she saw that her shots had gone wide. One into the wall, another at the bottom of the door, a third at the top. She stared a moment at her coward’s hand, and flung the gun away.
    The doorknob turned this way, that. It was the last thing she saw. The bright doorknob shining like an eye.
    Leaning out, she fell into the snow.
    Â 
    R ETURNING WITH THE POLICE hours later, she saw her footsteps in the snow, running away from silence.
    She and the sheriff and his men stood under the empty trees, gazing at the house.
    It seemed warm and comfortable, once again brightly lighted, a world of radiance and cheer in a bleak landscape. The front door stood wide to the blowing snows.
    â€œJesus,” said the sheriff. “He must have just opened up the front door and strolled out, damn, not caring who saw! Christ, what nerve !”
    Alice moved. A thousand white moths flicked her eyes. She blinked and her eyes fixed in a stare. Then slowly, softly, her throat fluttered.
    She began a laugh that ended with a muffled sobbing.
    â€œLook!” she cried. “Oh, look !”
    They looked, and then saw the second path of footprints which came neatly down the front porch stairs into the white soft velvet snow. Evenly spaced, with a certain serenity, these footprints could be seen where they marched off across the front yard, confident and deep, vanishing away into the cold night and snowing town.
    â€œ His footsteps.” Alice bent and put out her hand. She measured then tried to cover them